You never know what will wash up on the beach. Last week, for example, two children came across what they thought was a barnacle-encrusted scuba tank. It turned out to be a 100-pound air-drop bomb from World War II.
According to Gulf Coast News, the unsuspecting children even touched and took photos of the object, which washed ashore on Englewood Beach in Charlotte County.
On Saturday, June 14, the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office was notified, a deputy confirmed it was a bomb and an unknown number of residents on the beach were evacuated as a precaution.
Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Christopher Hall said the department notified the Hazardous Devices Unit of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office as well as the McDill Air Force Base’s Explosive Ordinance Team.
According to Sarasota County Sheriff Office spokesperson Dana Judge, McDill determined the bomb was a 100-pound AN-M30 aircraft bomb. The bomb type was used against a variety of targets during the war, and its AN prefix signified the joint nomenclature system of the United States Army and Navy.
An X-ray of the bomb revealed it was inactive, most likely rendered non-explosive from its age as well as water erosion on the inside, Judge said.
Though unusual, it is not altogether unheard of that a World War II remnant would wash ashore in the area.
Partly because the west coast of Florida was so sparely populated during the 1940s, aircraft pilots trained in Sarasota County, including at the Venice airport.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Non-explosive World War II bomb washes ashore on Englewood Beach
Reporting by Chris Anderson, Sarasota Herald-Tribune / Sarasota Herald-Tribune
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